Like
The Bodyguard and
Waiting to Exhale before it,
The Preacher's Wife is a soundtrack that also functions as a
Whitney Houston album, but that's where the similarity ends. Where
The Bodyguard was adult contemporary pop at its finest and
Waiting to Exhale was a virtual encyclopedia of mid-'90s mainstream black pop,
The Preacher's Wife is a fairly awkward attempt at gospel-soul. Much of the music on the soundtrack was composed by
Babyface, who normally can pull off such fusion, but too much of the album sounds overly-labored and too careful.
Babyface's pop material and
David Foster's production of
Houston's "I Believe in You and Me" are the most successful cuts, bar
Kirk Franklin's exuberant "Joy," which utterly puts the other gospel cuts on the album to shame. So, there are enough strong cuts to make
The Preacher's Wife worthwhile, but anyone who is looking for
Houston strutting like a diva will likely be disappointed. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine